


Dirtha, Vhenan

by Katalyna_Rose



Series: Vhenan and Associated Stories (Lyna Lavellan) [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age Quest: In Hushed Whispers, F/M, Red Lyrium, Redcliffe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 00:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8079661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katalyna_Rose/pseuds/Katalyna_Rose
Summary: In a quiet moment, when thoughts of what she witnessed in the future at Redcliffe plague her mind, Lyna confesses everything she saw there to Solas. Much of what she tells him did not make it into her official report, nor into Dorian's.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism is encouraged and desired. Flames will be actively ignored.

“There’s something I never told you,” Lyna whispered into the darkness. Solas shifted beside her, wrapping his arms around her and pressing a gentle kiss to her temple to let her know he was awake and listening. “It seemed… wrong, somehow, to speak of events that never happened, that I made sure would never come to pass. But the memories nag at me, and I hope… somehow… that giving them voice will make them leave me alone.”

“Dirtha,” he whispered, his concern clear in that single word. Lyna took a deep breath to steady herself.

“At Redcliffe, in the future where Alexius succeeded, I saw you.” She paused, struggling with how to continue.

“I know,” he murmured, urging her on.

“But I didn’t tell you everything,” she confided softly. “I didn’t tell anyone everything. Only Dorian ever knew, because he was there.”

“Dirtha,” he whispered again, “if it will ease you.” He pressed another kiss to her face.

 

* * *

 

Lyna rushed through the bowels of the castle, panic speeding her steps. Dorian kept pace beside her, casting more puzzled glances her way. Iron Bull trailed behind them, his head hanging low. He said nothing beyond occasionally biting out curses as the red lyrium poisoning caused pain to flare in his body. Though Lyna was worried for her friend, she couldn’t keep her sympathies on him. She had to find him. He had to be here, somewhere, and she had to find him.

When the three of them came upon his cell, Solas was pacing, his shoulders drooped, head hanging low. His quiet reserve and calm confidence were nowhere to be seen, and it nearly broke her. He jumped back as he caught sight of her, shock and something like fear in his face. She fumbled with the key ring, trying desperately to unlock his cell.

“You’re alive? I saw you die!” he exclaimed as she finally managed to find the right key. His voice was shattered by red lyrium poisoning, the corrupted mineral glittering behind his eyes. She wanted to weep.

“The spell Alexius cast displaced us in time,” Dorian told him. “We just got here, so to speak.”

Lyna could force no words past her throat. She didn’t know him well, but she had grown fond of him. She sought him out for conversation, asking him endless questions about his journeys and the Fade, and he was ever patient with his answers. She respected him for his intellect and enjoyed his wit. She knew she was harboring a growing infatuation with him, and to see him corrupted by red lyrium wrenched her heart.

“Can you reverse the process?” Solas asked quickly, picking up Dorian’s meaning a lot faster than Lyna had expected given his current condition. She should have known better. He was nothing if not intelligent. “You could return and obviate the events of the last year! It may not be too late!”

“You look… bad,” Lyna finally said, and his eyes turned to her, nearly stealing her breath. Something in his gaze was very different from what she was used to. He wasn’t hiding his feelings from her as he always had before, and though he had looked disinterestedly at Dorian his gaze now was smoldering, burning into her as he greedily searched her features as if memorizing their shape. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked a little desperately. Anything to ease his pain, no matter what, she would have given him.

“I am dying,” he told her. He said it so calmly, as if he had remarked upon the weather. How long had he known, to be able to say it like that? Or perhaps he was relieved by it? The red lyrium was painful, she knew. She struggled to hide her reaction, to keep her face clear of the despair his words evoked in her. “But no matter.” Her breath caught in her throat. He truly didn’t care? “If you can undo this, they could all be saved! But you know nothing of this world. It is far worse than you understand. Alexius has a master, the Elder One.” He told her of Corypheus’s intent to assassinate Celene and raise a demon army. In an effort to keep herself from sobbing, she made a sarcastic joke. Where once he would have chuckled at her dark humor, now he only earnestly insisted that she had to succeed.

He fought by her side, his magic made even more potent by his rage. He once fought with cold reserve, but fire now rained from his hands, obliterating his enemies with ease. He said nothing as they traveled through the castle, but watched her with a strange expression that she could not identify. Over the twang of her bowstring as she rained arrows on the horrible people who had destroyed the world, she heard him whisper strange words in Elvhen, things she did not understand but that sounded almost like prayers.

He watched stoically as Leliana killed Felix, an action he would have, once, been strongly against. He would have yelled, raged at her for throwing away a bargaining chip like that, for killing an innocent. But now he did nothing, felt nothing, as she slit his throat. He unleashed his agony and rage on Alexius.

When finally the magister lay dead before them and Dorian found the amulet that had been used to send them forward in time, Lyna saw Solas close his eyes briefly and let out a sigh of relief.

“Ah hour?” Leliana protested. “That’s impossible! You must go now!” The stones of the castle shook as Corypheus’s dragon flew overhead, likely spitting fire in its fury. Tiles rained down from the ceiling, and Lyna crouched, attempting to shield herself from them.

“You cannot stay here!” Solas cried. He looked at Iron Bull, and they shared a nod. Bull gripped his giant axe a little tighter. “We’ll hold the outer door,” Solas said, and Lyna wanted to scream. “When they get past us, it’ll be your turn.” _When_ , he said. He was accepting death, and she couldn’t stand it.

“No!” she cried, taking a step forward. “I won’t let you commit suicide!”

“Look at us,” Leliana said. “We’re already dead. The only way we live is if this day never comes.” She turned, and Bull turned with her, heading for the door. Solas lingered. Lyna shook her head, wanting to beg him to stay, wanting to say things that she had never dared before.

He strode to her and quickly took her face in his hands. His skin was rough and dry, cracked and blistered, but he held her steady and took her lips with his own. The kiss was quick but impassioned, telling her far more clearly than words could what he felt for her.

He pulled back far too soon. “Do not let me neglect to do that when you return,” he told her, then turned away.

“Solas!” she cried, reaching for him. He sidestepped her grasping hand. A small smile tugged at his lips, the greatest gift he could give her then. And then he left, barring the door behind him. Leliana took up a position in front of it, an arrow to her bow, ready. Dorian cleared his throat uncomfortably, but kept his head bent to his task.

A rift was forming, a swirling void of energy coming from the artifact Dorian poured his magic into, when the sounds of fighting began. Lyna turned toward the door, hating the sounds with her entire being. Solas was fighting for her, fighting to give her a chance to save them all. But all she wanted to do was go to him, fight with him, for him. She knew she couldn’t, but when she heard a string of curses shouted in Elvish she grit her teeth and tried so hard not to listen.

The door burst open only a few minutes later and Iron Bull’s bloodied form fell through, unmoving and broken. He was dead. A sob tore at her throat. Leliana shot arrow after arrow at the approaching forces, her prayers falling from her lips, spat at them like fire from a dragon. It wasn’t enough. Soon, an arrow pierced her shoulder, but she fought on.

Lyna’s eyes searched the battle, looking for signs of Solas. When she found him, she cried out and took a step away before Dorian grabbed her.

“You move, and we all die!” he shouted, but she hardly cared. Solas was dead, his body clutched by a demon like a child with a favorite doll. The demon tossed him aside as it went after Leliana, its claws rending her flesh. And she could not look away from the still form of the elven apostate whose presence she had begun to crave. She wanted him, wanted his touch and his voice, wanted to talk to him for hours on end and touch him gently in passion. She wanted to know if she loved him. But there he lay, broken and defeated, all potential erased from existence.

The rift sucked her in, and she squeezed her eyes shut, holding her breath. Dorian had said that there was a chance that this wouldn’t work, that they would die in the process. She hardly cared. If it worked, Solas would be alive and well. If it didn’t, then maybe she would see him again, anyway, and the burden of being Andraste’s Herald would be removed from her shoulders.

 

* * *

 

The tears dripped from the corners of her eyes, hot and stinging. Solas wiped them away gently and wrapped her tighter in his arms. He whispered to her sweetly, reassurances that what she had witnessed then did not come to pass, that he was there with her and she didn’t have to be afraid.

Lyna rolled towards him and wrapped her arms around him tightly. “It was real,” she whispered, trying not to sob. “It isn’t now, but it was then. You were… I only wanted more time. I wanted to help you. And I couldn’t.”

“But you did,” he contradicted, holding her gently where she clutched at his chest. “Whatever else was true in that timeline, I knew that you had to go back, to prevent it from happening. And you did. I have never felt the corruption of red lyrium in my veins. I have never spent time in a cell beneath Redcliffe Castle. You saved me from that fate, vhenan.” She sniffled and nodded, trying to stop the tears. “Don’t be afraid to cry,” he whispered, his hands moving in soothing circles on her back. “Crying is a way to release your anguish, and sometimes it is necessary. So cry all you need, vhenan, and I will hold you through it.”

Much later, when her tears finally slowed and she was able to breathe deeply again, she kissed his chin. “I’m glad that you didn’t neglect to kiss me,” she whispered, and felt his chest rumble beneath her with silent laughter.

Gently, he tilted her head up to look her in the eye. “You are far too precious to me not to kiss,” he whispered, and his lips met hers.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> Dirtha: Literally, "to speak." In this context, "Tell me"
> 
> This could take place at virtually any time during or after Inquisition, as long as the two of them are actively in a relationship. It could happen when they share a tent traveling for the Inquisition, or it could take place after they're reunited in my fic Vhenan. No one knows...
> 
> I just wanted to share my own personal spin on the events of In Hushed Whispers. Enjoy the feels!


End file.
